The Smile Game

It's the Smile Game. An engaging, fun activity where Beatrice explores her ever-expanding universe of family, friends, teachers and other adult figures of varying degrees.

Bea starts the process:

"Let's make...[insert name here]!"

Then I continue:

"Is [name] a boy or a girl?"

"A girl!"

"Okay, now what about her face..."

We continue on, making the new "virtual" person in Bea's social network, adding their nose, hair style, eye style, eye color, hair color, clothing color, body size and shape, glasses and/or freckles -- and last but certainly not least, the smile.

And it's always the same smile. A simple, sweet line curved up at the ends. Everyone smiles in Bea's world. We should all be so inclined. Yes, it's toddler naivete, but she doesn't know the difference.

Again, we should all be so inclined.

Forget that it's a first-generation Nintendo Wii where you can make the different people that end up appearing in the different games you can play. To Bea, it's the Smile Game where familiar faces bring comfort to a still very new person in this big friggin' sometimes sad and scary world. A world where you can lose both parents in only four months.

On a lighter note, baseball may be a few months away, but we can play with family and friends everyday.

"Daddy, let's play baseball!"

"You got it, Bea. Batter up," I say, smiling.

We hold our protest signs on high

Gun control may or may not be one of the answers in the U.S. to curb violence and violent deaths, but globally, impulse control certainly is.

In fact, a big misconception is that we're so much more violent today than our ancestors were yesterday. Media exploitation aside, the data actually shows rates of violence and violent death have declined over the past few thousand years, and our ability to empathize, curb our violent impulses and value human life has never been higher. Steven Pinker does an amazing job of explaining this all in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. The rates of violence today really are lower than they've ever been.

Even those experts who don't necessarily agree with all the violence-declining theories Pinker postulates in his book do agree that statistically speaking we've gotten less violent as a species, not more violent. And the increase of impulse control and how we value human life is a big part of that.

Until it's not and control is again lost in horrific examples where we regress quite rapidly, the latest in the news makes it seem like there's a crazy on every corner ready to kill us and our children.

But it was the news I saw posted from my friends at The Pixel Project about the gang-rape in New Delhi of a 23-year-old medical student, and her eventual death from her injuries, that really stopped me cold. Of course I immediately thought of my own two young daughters and the fact that they could be 23-year-old medical students someday and that even with the overall decline in violence, violence against women is still a worldwide scourge.

Many women's rights advocates say that rapes, sex crimes and violent deaths go unreported in many parts of the world, even in the U.S. And for those reported, nearly 1.3 million women and about 835,000 men are assaulted by their partner every year in the United States.

We're not talking random rape here like in the recent India example. According to a National Women’s Study that sampled a total of 4,008 women, 13 percent of all adult women become rape victims during their lifetime. About 9 percent of the female victims were raped by their husbands or ex-husbands, nearly 10 percent were raped by their boyfriends or ex-boyfriends. Additionally, 11 percent of the female victims were raped by their fathers or stepfathers, and 16 percent were raped by other relatives.

The outrage in India has sparked protests and a cry for justice, but it also needs to be a cry for self-control and an even greater value of human life, for those we know and those we don't.

The picture of protesting Indian schoolchildren holding up declarative signs moves me to write yet again about putting an end to violence against women and intimate partner violence for both women and men, to renew my investment in 2013 in generating empathy, increasing impulse control from the day we're born, and elevating a little higher, however incremental, our value of one another, our children and our children's children.

Do Not Touch Me, My Dress Is Not A Yes

Indeed it is not. The Mama and I and our girls concur and we hold our signs on high.

All in on Christmas, a winner every time

"But you don't have to be an angel

To sing harmony.

You don't have to be a child

To love the mystery.

And you don't have to be a wise man

On bended knee.

The heart of this Christmas is in you and me." --Amy Grant

She's insanely excited about the numbers. The next day's number to be precise, once she empties the pocket of today's of course, full of two Hershey's kisses and a tiny ornament and/or another tiny holiday knick-knack like Santa and reindeer erasers the Mama and Nonna picked up at the dollar store.

It's the first thing Bea does when she wakes up and comes downstairs: she bounds immediately over the Advent calendar than Nana made for us a few years ago (my mom), announces the date and thrusts her hand into its pocket to loot its bounty.

Right after that: "Mommy, I want to look at 23." 

"That's not until tomorrow, Sweetie. You'll have to wait."

"Okay."

And then Bea brings a chocolate kiss over to Bryce.

"Here you go, Bryce."

Bryce nods and says, "Yum, yum."

And then I ask, "How many days left until Christmas, Beatrice?"

Bea runs back over to the calendar and starts counting.

"One, two, three..."

And then Bryce calls out, "Beatrice! More choc-lat!"

They're both all in on every number. It's brilliant to watch. When you're 2+ and 4+, you don't know how else to be; all in on one number at a time is the preferred Christmas toddler roulette gamble. Spin, baby, spin. A winner every time.

Although, there's always tomorrow, right?

"Mommy, I want to look at 23." 

Last weekend we took the girls to see Santa and they were both thrilled to bits. They sat happily on his lap and Beatrice told him what she wanted while Bryce babbled away in kind. They got yummy candy canes and when we left and walked past a store window with a classic holiday train running along a track around a tree, they stood mesmerized in front of the window and our hearts filled with childlike joy watching them.

*sigh*

Back to this weekend. "Beatrice, what did you tell Santa you wanted?"

"A castle," she says proudly, and then, "Daddy, I want to look at 23."

"Tomorrow, my sweet Bea. Tomorrow." 

And then she's off to count the remaining days...

I remember writing a silly poem in my late teens about my anticipatory glee of Christmas each year, and how I knew when I was 102, I'd still be thrilled to bits on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

And that's never been more true now that we have children. In fact, I can't even imagine not having children excited for Christmas (and nearly every day), even though at one time weren't going to have any (and no, we don't disparage those who don't).

Maybe that's why I knew I'd be thrilled to bits at Christmas at 102, to continually live life through the "all in" gamblers, and so my heart aches for the families who lost their children tragically this month in Newton, CT, and our prayers for healing go out to the entire community.

May their anticipatory glee keep the universe lit forever.

Heaven's Addendum

Their heaven wraps around the finger lake at sunrise
like a gold band forged now and forever.
I walk and cry and laugh and run along the paths,
Draw beauty of sky, trees, debris and water
deep into my lungs' tendrils that feed my heart.
I stop to pay homage to Kinkade and Sparks,
tempered (of course) by Hopper, Folds and Peart,
Bly and Kerouac, and Stein and Thompson Walker of late.
I thank God for my parents, for their love and suffering
when their bodies finally slowed to sudden stops
only four months and a day apart after a millennium.
Heartache leaves permanent scars of pleasure and pain,
but I thank God for my parents and their heaven,
for it will be there for me every morning I rise
promising more than until death do us part,
an eternal promise for my wife and us all.

Now and forever

We told Bea about heaven. In the simplest of definitions, with loving language and expository words used sparingly if at all.

The Mama had finally made it home from Oregon, but I was still here with my sister taking care of what had to be cared for. There I was, watching my family on FaceTime in front of our fireplace adorned with stockings and lit Christmas moon lights.

"What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down..."

Bryce babbled and ran back and forth across the camera's field of vision, calling for Nonna, and Nonna answered back softly. Beatrice stood in front of the couch while the Mama kneeled next to her. Bea held the little figurine of two mice that she fell in love with when we were up visiting my parents in June, Nana and Papa as all the grandkids knew them.

"Beatrice," the Mama said, "we want to tell you that Nana isn't sick anymore, that she's with Papa in a better place."

"Yes," I said.

The Mama continued. "Nana and Papa are now together in heaven where they will be forever."

"Nana and Papa are together," Bea echoed. "In heaven."

"Yes, sweetie. They love you very much and will always be with you."

As I said those words, I ached to believe them, as if my very presence in that moment depended on everything I learned as a child in the Nazarene Church -- the many pictures of smiling Christs, arms always draped lovingly around children of all colors and nations, set in a meadows on warm spring days.

"They will always be with you, Bea."

I watched as Bea's mind swirled and ticked, trying to understand what it all meant. She held the mouse figurine tightly and smiled. I took that as my answer.

For two people who've always questioned the edicts and redeeming value of conservative Christianity, the Mama and me were quite comfortable telling Bea about the coloring book version of heaven.

Because we believe we'll be together someday in a better place. Because we already are -- the Mama, me, the B-hive and our family and friends.

Heaven is being with those you love. To hell with everything else. Heaven is now; heaven is forever.

We love you, Mom and Dad. Now and forever. Merry Christmas.

Give Your Fuzzy A Present

"Fuzzy is very sad. Fuzzy needs to open a present."

And there it is. Through all the loss and drama my family has experienced during the past few months, leave it to Beatrice to keep it real for Daddy. Both Beatrice and Bryce don't really understand what happened with my Poppa, their grandpa and my Pop, when he died, but Bea realizes he's gone. We've handled it with explanation-light for Bea, although Bryce is still really too young to get it.

They also don't understand my mom's chronic illness and continual health problems, their Nana. They don't know how stressful it was to get Nana from my sister's to us right after I returned from Europe, and then me driving her back home to Oregon so she could reset in her health system while her doctors facilitated some stability. Although with my mom these days it's more like a defective light bulb that constantly flickers off and on, sometimes shiny brightly with radiance, and sometimes going completely dark.

But the girls did feel the stress of their daddy, and that's something I'm going to have to be more sensitive to as they get older and more aware of every nuance to life's pops, buzzes and brain stops.

Any comfort for the chronically ill is always welcomed, and getting mom set up with her iPad and FaceTime so she can see the B-hive any time she wants was critical. I have to continually explain to her how to use the program, but she'll get there. That time to be around any friends and family now is healing, if sadly brief and fleeting. The reality of my dad being gone has all but flattened her to the far side of the universe with a gravity unmatched from the darkest heart of a collapsed star. She's alone in her house now. However, we are working on moving her down to us as soon as feasibly possible.

Fuzzy is Beatrice's little swatch of pink, silky and "fuzzy" Winnie the Pooh comfort that her Auntie Jill made, the Mama's sister. It's her soul food comfort in the form of a blankie; Bryce has her own bigger yellow blankie. Each of us has our own "blankie" of sorts,  some literal or figurative vessel that carries us away and soothes us with a gift of calming joy.

Be thankful for your own well moments of body and spirit, and be sensitive to those loved ones whose very fragility reduces them to motes alighting inside an empty house at dusk. Give them the gift of love and hugs this holiday season; give your fuzzy a present.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Most Important Thing

"One more song about moving along the highway

Can't say much of anything that's new

If I could only work this life out of my way

I'd rather spend it being close to you…"

--Carole King, So Far Away

So, how did we get here again?

We stood outside my parent's house in Oregon with Mom, her car I drove from Santa Cruz full of her and her little dog and much of her stuff, and waited for her friends to bring us a copy of her house key because the one we had didn't work. Twelve and a half hours of cramped but fairly smooth sailing on the highways and byways, listening to the sounds of the 70's and of my childhood, only to have to wait a little longer. (Thank goodness Ody keeps beating the Wreckers.)

She's so fragile, both physically and emotionally, grieving for the loss of Pop, or her well-being over the years battling with chronic illness and pain and a lifetime with meds. Going from my sister's house to mine and then back to Oregon over the past few months has been a mixed blessing, the emotional scars of family dynamics and a little dysfunction flaring up yet again.

And now we're here in their house where Pop passed away not even three months ago. The house is clean and tidy, their dear friends taking care of it while Mom was away. Most of her stuff unloaded from the car, tossed here and there for now until we can put it away, I sit and write, not feeling like we've gained anything from falling back, not even that elusive hour.

The incomprehensible burden of what we do next flattens me to the ground. But I have to get off it. I have to get off it and stand up and help Mom get acclimated to this interim world in Oregon, however temporary it may be. Getting her back to us is the optimal solution, but how to get there, I do not know yet.

I remember a car load from another time, a light blue VW bug that sputtered along, filled with a beautiful but battered mother and her two children and their stuff. A mother who's strength and courage survived over 12 years of domestic violence with two little kids to care for, my sister and me. A faithful servant of God for years, even in her moments of destructive doubt, inescapable grieving and her belittled will to live. She just reminded me of how good it is I'm here with her. I held her tightly in return. Sometimes that's all we need in moments like this, the assurance of warmth and safety in being held, just like she used to do for us back then.

The expository text may tell of how we get here, but the most important thing is that we're here. And what we do with it.